hairbrained schemes

Visions of Sugarplums beating me in the head.

That's where I'm at right about now.

But in a good way, if that makes sense at all.

Etsy = SUPER busy

House = extremely chaotic

Family = mostly wonderful

Dog = sweet but hairing up my house & adding to the chaos

Christmas = can we push it back a week?

My brother's family is coming for Christmas & I am really excited. It's been about 10 years (at least) since we were together during the holidays.  But an extra week to get things ready would be great.  As it is, I'm ready to throw a bowl of candy canes on the table & call it Christmas baking.

But all these things are good.

The kids aren't going to remember that there wasn't piles of gingerbread men in the house when they are grown (I'm sincerely hoping they aren't as food oriented as I am), they will remember going skiing with their mom and friends and sitting in the hot tub after rehashing, in great detail, every single grind, jump and bail that happened up at the hill.

One of my prints was featured in this beautiful & unique treasury today.

I love it.  And the title is so fitting. (click on the image to go to the treasury)

My friend, Marnie, hosted Renee Pearson's blog last week and I volunteered to contribute a couple of layouts.

 

Thanks to Libby Pritchett for her fabulous as always digital kits. 

In all the chaos, I do need to remind myself ever so often, it really is a good good life.

 

 

 

new kid in town

Check it out!

skater boy

Okay, I know to stay true to my title from song theme, that should actually be Sk8r Boi, but I have a deep rooted hatred of all things spelled wrong just to be cool.

Gorgeous George tortures me with the "Westside Boyz" atv club he formed a couple of years ago. 

That is what I have to live with on a regular basis, my friends.  (and while wearing things like cut-offs no less, I'm a freakin' saint if you haven't already figured that out).

Now back to what this post is really about.

Now that the house is off the market (for today anyway) we (I) have decided to decorate the boys' rooms.

Jacob chose Star Wars which we are working on finding stuff for. 

We bought one of those nifty word wall vinyl quotey things from a friend and put it up under a shelf that houses all the "DON'T TOUCH UPON THREAT OF GREAT BODILY HARM THAT MEANS YOU LUCAS" Star Wars lego.

Coveted (mostly by me) at the moment:

And Lucas chose skateboarding/snowboarding/surfing (this child has decision making problems)

So in trying to stay within the budget that we've set for ourselves since February, I made this:

I made the picture part in PSE and the frame is a cupboard door that I spraypainted with aluminum (have you ever heard a British person say aluminum?  It's fun!  If you meet someone from there I highly suggest you try to trick them into saying it. I have a new friend from the UK and could listen to her talk all day long) and then roughed it up with sandpaper.

and this:

I was lucky enough to find a font that has all the skate brands and used a couple of background papers from my supertalented friend, Libby's, digital kits.

Naturally, nothing is up yet because I'm waiting to find him a new bed (and I'm an awesome procrastinator).

I will share photos when it all comes together. 

I'm thinking maybe September.

 

lucky to be where i have been

So, I finally got the Scrapbook Play with Photos magazine and for the first time, it really hit me.

This is the last issue of Simple. 

As I flipped through it (back to front, looking at the pictures first, and then front to back reading everything - you know, the way normal people read magazines) it really slammed home that this is the last time I'll be seeing all my friends and scrapbook heroes in print.

I'm not much of a crier about stuff like that, but I kind of welled up a bit.  Weird.

I want to say thank you - to Angie, Wendy, Rachel, Stacy, Carolyn, all the Jennys/Jennifers/Jennafers ;), Megan and all my Editorial board girls, the Simple Gals and everyone else that I've had the great pleasure of working with - you all rock (and you know who you are!)

Who knew that this little hobby that started with this page:

(please pay close attention to the totally unrelated photos and the random wagon full of hearts - creativity at it's best)

at my friend, Dawn's, Creative Memory party that she dragged little ol' uncrafty me to almost 10 years ago would have turned into a passion that actually gave me the opportunity to not only see my stuff in print, but to also make me a little money to help support my habit and make friends all over North America.

Who knew.

And without further ado, here are the winners of the little prizey gifts from the other day:

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

13	14	

Congratulations, Betty and Scrapperkaren! Please email me with 
your addresses!

And here is a bigger prizey gift, gotta love Making Memories(and 
I will count any comments from the last post 
towards this and will post the winner on Monday).

 

Have a fabulous weekend and make sure you've been to these blogs 
for even more fabulous prizes!

Cathy

Wendy

Angie

yesterday

I was supposed to post links to these

Celeste Smith - 

Celeste's blog is full of amazing little bits of eyecandy.  She finds and posts the best of the crafty little fun stuffs to be found on the internet. 

Plus her adorable boys give her some of the best scrapbook material I've seen. I've been admiring her layouts for years now and was thrilled at the opportunity to work with her.

Beth Proudfoot

Beth is amazing.  So imagine my excitement when she started up a blog last year.  One of the first assignments I received was for the fun "recipe tester" chapter for the Album Shortcuts issue.  And I got to "test" on of Beth's designs.  

Now imagine how intimidated I was...(remember, I'm the dork who has held on to emails from Wendy, Angie and some of the other gals, who I won't wax poetic about because frankly, I don't need anymore restraining orders).

Margaret Scarbrough

What can one say about Margaret?  She is funny.  Hilariously so. Her boys are funny.  Hilariously so (I think they get it from their dad)

And have you seen her photos? 
And her layouts?

I know, right?

I love her blog, it's one of my favourites (and that is my little passive-aggressive way of letting her know I hope she'll update more often.)

Rachel Gainer

I had the pleasure of working with Rachel quite a few times.  She is one of the sweetest people that worked at Simple.  One of the other Editorial Team members had posted on their blog how intimidating is was to be talking or emailing with an EDITOR (see, I bolded and redded that to show how scary it was).  People like Rachel kind of made people like me (freaks) take and breath and think, "Hey, they're nice!"

Here are a couple of assignments I did for Rachel:

(true story!)

Now I have to make a couple of very important phone calls.

So I'll be back later with the winners to the little prizey gifts from two days ago and with another "GRAND PRIZE" (that I just received in the mail from Angie to give away!)

at last...

my love has come along...

and dragged me and my 2nd born (my 2nd born and I?) on a freakin' 2 hour hike straight up a mountain strewn with rock piles that look suspiciously like snake houses and poop that looks suspiciously MUCH bigger than normal deer poop (I'm thinking genetically enhanced deer or moose...and I'm thinking it's mating season, so whatever it was is probably ticked off and/or horny)

When we finally got to the top, probably covered with ticks that are yet to be found, we took the requisite "holy crap, we made it and Lucas only fell 4 times and didn't even draw (much) blood" photos, which look a lot like this:

(the rabbit ears are a payback for all the photos that child has ruined by rabbit earring me behind my back)

Imagine the intense shame I felt upon viewing this photo and realizing that for the first time in our 14 years together Gorgeous George did NOT pull a stupid face for a photo.

This one cracked me up. 

There's Waldo in the background, doing what he does best wreaking havoc and having a good time doing it.

And also cracking me up, upon viewing this one GG looks at me with a slightly concerned look on his face and asks, "Does this picture make me look bald?"

Now back to the regularly scheduled program...

First of all, I would like to announce the winners for the Quick & Easy Issue

(please insert "that's how I like'em joke" here - wacka wacka...)

I finally got to use the Random Integer generator because I had more than 3 people to choose from.

 

True Random Number Service

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

28
21

Timestamp: 2009-04-30 02:46:01 UTC

Which by my calculations (and I do hope my math is correct) means the winners are:

Rose

and

Jennifer Sizemore

Congrats ladies,it is a great little idea book!

I've been looking through all my Simple layouts and picked a couple more to share today.

This one is a lift from the uber-talented and lovely Candice Palmer and the journaling was copied, and slightly edited and pasted straight from this blog.

I also have a few little prizey give-aways for today, I'm just waiting for the photo of them to upload. 

Which might take awhile.

In addition to climbing Mount Everest Boucherie today I also went on a field trip to an old Ranch about an hour from here and took about 120 photos which are in queue before the little prizey give-aways. 

Sorry.

But think of it as Vegas, baby, and you just pulled the arm on the nickel machine.

Also, check out these lovelies if you haven't already today:

Elisha Snow

Rebecca Cooper

Marnie Flores

Now I have a hot date with the boob tube and Gorgeous George.

See you tomorrow.

don't dream it's over

Have you checked out all the Simple blog party so far this week?

Here's a list of links to the Simple Scrapbook peeps who blog...or bleeps, if you will.....

Elizabeth Dillow

Candice Palmer

Jennifer Wozab

Rebecca Cooper

Marnie Flores

Cheryl Overton

Elisha Snow

Rachel Gainer

Beth Proudfoot

Celeste Smith

Stacy Julian

Angie Lucas

Wendy Smedley

Cathy Zielske

I do believe the Simple Philosophy will live on...

one of the things I love most about my personal take on that philosophy is the importance of finding your voice and letting that shine through on your pages.  I've had friends tell me that when they read my journaling they can hear me saying the words exactly how I've typed them...for me, that is one of the best compliments I've received about this little craft of ours.

Here are a couple of my favourite layouts that I think sort of show what Willis is talkin' about.

This one is an oldie.  I'm going to go out on a limb and say it's about 5 years old.  And if I type it and send it out on the interwebs, well then, it must be true.

This one is newer, but every time I look at that smiling little face I remember how happy he was using his God given ability to rhyme words with his brother's name to make him mad.

(*note* can you believe that when we named Lucas we honestly looked at each other, rather smugly if I do say so myself, and said, "and the best part is, there are no mean rhyming words for Lucas!" - in my defense I was 9 months and 7 days pregnant at the time, but I'm not sure what GG's excuse is....)

 
 

oops! i did it again

neglected the old bloggity blog, that is...

I've been in a scrapbook depression since we got the news about Simple being reabsorbed into the CK machine and needed something to snap myself out of it.

And what could be better motivation to snap out of it, than to celebrate our favourite magazine?

But I have a very good reason for getting back in the saddle once again so without further ado, let's unveil the blog party that is....

(logo courtesy of the ever-so talented Cathy Zielske)

As some of you may know, I do love a good party.

Preferably with a theme and hopefully costumes.

(Which if you stay tuned, I promise later this week I will post a photo from last Friday night that encompasses all of that rolled into a little something I like to call "Gorgeous George Hates Country Music")

But, as always, I digress...


The first assignment I ever received from SS was from the lovely Wendy Smedley.  Before this I had a few layouts picked up here and there that I had submitted, but I opened an email from Wendy (from March 9th, 2006 and which I still have saved in my Outlook Express, is that creepy?) this fine Spring morning (I don't know for sure if it was fine, but it sets a nice background for my story so I think I'll take some liberties) requesting a layout for the special issue Quizzes and Questionnaires. 

Long story slightly shorter, after I picked myself up off the floor, did a happy dance which included some running man, high kicks and scaring the dog badly, I emailed her back accepting the assignment.

This was the layout I created using the questionnaire she sent me:


Which, for many reasons, ended up being one of my favourite layouts that I've done to date. 

A couple of weeks later, I received another email from Wendy (also still saved in my Outlook Express) saying, "OK-you won't believe this, but I am wondering if you could do another last minute assignment for the same project?"

Insert a repeat of my patented happy dance, (with slightly lower high kicks due to a prior high kick groin injury) and a trying to be cool reply of "sure!"

And this was the 2nd layout for the same special issue:



What's kind of funny, is looking at the two layouts now, next to each other, I realize that they are pretty much the same design (and that my photo taking of layouts could use quite a bit of work)

Which I could look at two different ways:

    a) Good thing they didn't notice and kept calling me

        and/or

    b) One of the things I took away from the Simple philosophy was that it wasn't about
        being caught up or how much of the latest and greatest embellishments were piled on the page,
        it was about telling our story in whatever way felt right to us.

Please check back this week, there will be prizes (and tomorrow I will finally make the draw for the 2 Quick & Easy books I posted about MONTHS ago (i suck, but i also am okay with bribing for forgiveness). 

And tomorrow go and check some of my favourites from Simple, Jennifer, Candice and Elizabeth - these lovely ladies will both be posting something special on their blogs tomorrow :)

bad to the bone

A Short Dialogue About Bad Things Happening to (mostly) Good People

Setting: in the car after school

Cast of Characters: Lucas (who is simply trying to get a little attention away from his brother who just scored 51/51 on a The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe test and is gloating and high fiving himself just a touch too much to the smaller brother's liking) and me.

Lucas:  So yah, today in gym?  You know those scoop thingies?  And those balls with the holes in them?

Me: Wiffle balls?

Lucas: Yah!  Those.  Well, I got hit REALLY HARD - right in the cheek by one...and then when this nice girl in my class was helping me, Morgan hit me AGAIN, right in the eye.

(slight aside:  the child in question spends a whole lotta time in the "office" from getting hurt, hurt on the playground, hurt in gym, hurt while walking to the library...")

Me: Did you cry?

Lucas: Yup.

Me: Did you go to the office?

Lucas: Yup.

Me: Hmmmm...are there a lot of kids that get hurt as much as you do?

Lucas: Nope.

Me: Why do you think that is?

Lucas: (without skipping a beat)  Probably karma.

Me: (stifling laughter) Really?  Do you know what karma is?

Lucas: Yup, you do bad things, bad things happen to you.

Me:  Wow.  You must do a lot of bad things.

Lucas: Well, I do some bad things, but not as many bad things as bad things happen to me.

I guess that depends on who you are asking.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

I have 2 extra copies of the Simple Scrapbooks Quick and Easy Photo Albums special issue to give away.  If you're interested, leave a comment with your name and I will announce the winners in a few days! 

Couple of little card sets - the first one is American Crafts - love their coordinated lines, the second is Crate paper.  I've been making cards and keeping them in a basket on in my craftroom because it always seems when I need a card for a birthday or whatever I don't have one. 

Sad Songs...

sad sad news about my favourite magazine

I really hope the powers that be at CK do what they say and keep the Simple philosophy within Creating Keepsakes.

Simple was the first magazine I that represented felt right to me about this craft and I was so lucky to have been a very small part of it.

I wish all the wonderful, talented ladies I've had the pleasure of working with over the last 2 years the best of luck in all of their future endeavours. And thank you to the entire staff - you are all amazing women and I can't wait to see what the future hold for each of you.

......................................................................

And a couple of "Simple" layouts...